1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device having a variant-shaped panel such as a substantially elliptical or circular shape, in which a peripheral region of a liquid crystal display panel is covered with a shield layer.
2. Description of the Background Art
Liquid crystal display devices are widely used as display devices for various kinds of equipments such as personal computers, OA equipments, and TV sets because the display devices have many advantages such as lightness, compactness and low power consumption. In recent years, the liquid crystal display device has also been used in mobile terminal equipments such as a mobile phone, a car navigation device and a game player, and a meter panel for automobiles
Accordingly, a variety of panel shapes corresponding to applications such as a circular or an elliptical shape have been desired, not limited to a conventional rectangular shape. For example, Japanese laid open patent application No. P2006-276359 discloses a liquid crystal display device having a display panel formed in a substantially circular or elliptical shape. Particularly, corner portions of respective array and color filter substrates that have a vertical long and rectangular shape, are cut down close to a display area to save a display space in the Japanese laid open patent application.
On the other hand, in a color liquid crystal display device composed of pixels, each pixel includes, for example, red, green and blue sub-pixels. When a part of the sub-pixels composing the pixels is shielded, for example, by a housing, a displayed color of the pixels may be off-balance, which may result in a color display different from a predetermined one. For example, when only a part of the red sub-pixel is shielded, a transmittance or a reflection of the red color is reduced, which results in a difficulty of a display with a desired color balance. In order to suppress such color shift, one idea to shield all the sub-pixels covered with the shield layer, such as for example by means of a black matrix layer. However, this idea has a drawback that the active area is reduced by the shield. Further, since edges of the active area are formed of dot patterns, smoothness of the edges of the active area in the circular or elliptical shape becomes impaired, which results in a bad image display.